MBP dropping packets

[roxnadz]

Hoo boy, looks like my MBP's Airport card is intermittently dropping packets.

Doing a ping against my WAP router reveals packet loss on the MBP. My 17" and my girlfriend's 12" PowerBooks - sitting right next to me as I type this - work flawlessly, returning all ICMPs.

I ran ping tests from all 3 computers sitting next to one another, and the PB works while the MBP drops anywhere from 8-15% of its packets.

What this translates to in real life is "Rebuffering Stream" messages and disconnects in iTunes - even on music that's on computers in the same room, as well as slow web page loads and hangs in Safari.

On the C2D I have 4 bars to my WAP router, never have less than 3. However this problem exhibits itself off and on (mostly on) since a few days ago.

Have power cycled the router and thought that to be the cause - it is a Belkin Pre-N F5D7230 that hasn't had a firmware update in over a year (no updates to be had at Belkin's site). However, this problem only exhibits itself on the MBP. Have turned Airport off & on, with no change in behavior.

Oh, forgot to mention: My WAP is set to be open but does not broadcast its SSID.

My MBP is a Week 46 15" glossy 2.33GHz C2D. And if it doesn't stop showing its a$$, it's getting swapped out for another one. What sucks is that everything else (so far) has been working perfectly.

My system is up to date.

Any clues? A search didn't turn up much.

Thanks,
-rox

 

[mad jew]

Have you tried disabling the security (WAP), even if only temporarily?

 

[roxnadz]

Have you tried disabling the security (WAP), even if only temporarily?

My WAP is set to be open but does not broadcast its SSID.

Security is not an issue here. But I'm wondering if driver problems are at the core of this.

Have been reading up on this on the Apple forums and apparently a lot of people are running into issues similar to this. Apple released an update specifically addressing Airport Extreme issues on the C2Ds but that didn't work for me.

 

[roxnadz]

So a little more investigation on this reveals the following:

- The problem seems to exist with any WAP I connect to
- For the most part wireless connectivity is fine, however I particularly notice problems when streaming music from machines on my local network (and particularly when I fast forward or rewind using Front Row).
- 'netstat -i' output (from Terminal) shows lots of "Input errors" on the wireless interface. (On my Powerbooks, there are no such errors)
- 'netstat -iw 1' output (again, from Terminal) shows input errors again, that appear to increase when I'm using the net, specifically when streaming.
- Download speeds don't really seem to be affected. I was able to download the 10.4.8 Combo Updater at a sustained speed of 535kB/s.
- DSLreports Speed tests tell me that my connection is operating at 3980 down/355 up (which is a little off my provisioned 4096/384 but not by much.)

So, overall, very weird stuff, but obviously subpar compared to my two other notebooks.

What would be nice is if people with C2D MBPs with 10.4.8 open up a terminal window, type 'netstat -i' and press Enter, then post the results here.

More as it comes...